Regarding the medical facilities, we are living in the poorest circumstances. No doubt, there are some private hospitals which are having good buildings and external appearance, but their performance has so much disappointed the public that in case of any serious ailment, people soon decide to go to Pakistan or India and those who can afford, to other developed countries of the world. It is a sad reality that our local doctors are not well-qualified and thus they are not much able to diagnose the disease and then prescribe the relevant medicine but most serious concern in health sector is the non-availability of quality medicines.

Both doctors and patients are found to be complaining that the medicine generally available in Afghanistan are very low-standard and it is the reason why, they never give the desired results. First, there is not present any standard pharmaceutical manufacturer in the country and very recently, a couple of them have started functioning but it would take years until they bring the quality of their products to the international standards. Secondly, our medicine distributors try hard to import medicine which should be cheap and they should be able to earn handsome and lofty profit out of it. With this thinking in mind, medicines from very low-standard factories of Pakistan and India are imported and the evident result is the unsatisfactory performance in the cure and recovery of patients. There are some factories and medicines which are not banned and not openly allowed to be sold in market in India and Pakistan are usually found in the medical stores of Afghanistan. On the other hand, majority of our illiterate people don’t know about the expiry date and other issues of medicine and thus our country is the most active market for these expired medicine. Similarly, there is no control and check on the importers and distributors of medicine in the country and thus they do whatever suits their objective of making more and more profit.

In short, the public has been left on the ill-plans and objectives of a group of medicine importers and distributors and those who are responsible for controlling them are also ignoring all these under the dose of the bribe which, they receive on regular basis. The condition may not be much disturbing to the rich who can easily go abroad for medical purposes but the poor and common public is suffering a lot and it is hoped that top government officials should check the situation immediately and take necessary corrective measures.